Page 62 - Studio International - November 1968

introductory pages explain some basic technical tioning is opscured by the effort to create 'modern
What the computer saw terms, though already by page 17 the innumerate art'.) Many of the graphics are reminiscent-in their
reader will be lost with the term 'coefficient of naivety but also in their artistic potential-of the
expansion' applied to music. The section on com­ nineteenth-century experiments with photography
puter poems and texts is comparatively trivial, no described in Aaron Sctiarf's Creative Photography.
Cybernetic Serendipity: the computer and the arts, serious contribution having been made by a student There is a further parallel here with the long-standing
edited by Jasia Reichardt. 104 pp illustrated through­ of linguistics and syntax. One could use nothing here argument, not yet dead, about whether photo­
out in monochrome with colour frontispiece. Studio to refute someone who accused the practitioners of graphy is an art or not.
International special publication. 25s paperback; computer texts of being totally insensitive to lan­ Miss Reichardt's own contributions to the catalogue
35s cloth. guage. But the section on computer music includes are appropriately tentative about theory and value­
articles which relate the subject to statistical informa­ judgments. Some of the other articles are less so. and
In the ICA exhibition itself. it was a pity that the din tion theory and to psychoacoustics. The section on raise important questions. For instance, Dr J. R.
of bleeping and hooting from various exhibits tended graphics is also comprehensive. As Miss Reichardt Pierce remarks 'A composer equipped with a digital
to devalue. for instance. the tremulous responsive­ notes, the exhibition 'deals with possibilities rather computer has no limitations except his own', since
ness to sound of Tsai's stroboscopic sculpture. than achievements'; and it is necessary to distinguish in theory all musical experience is digitally encod­
Similarly in the catalogue there is enough facetious­ work which could have been done without a com­ able. It is worth recalling here W. Ross Ashby's
ness and pretentiousness to_ camouflage some of the puter but is aesthetically pleasing-like Csuri and assertion in An Introduction to Cybernetics that
more interesting material. The very title 'Cybernetic Shaffer's Flies in a circle, which would not have lost efficient communication requires not only the
Serendipity' seems to me regrettably precious. How­ much by being done with Letraset transfers-from acceptance of constraints but also their exploitation.
ever, I see no point in dwelling on the weaker points work which is dependent on computer techniques Perhaps the computer will lead not to greater
of Jasia Reichardt's notable enterprise. Anyone who but aesthetically crude-like the Tokyo Computer 'diversity' and 'liberation· in art (such as is predicted
confronts it other than in a spirit of some intellectual Technique Group's Return to a square. (By contrast, at various points in the catalogue). but to a restored
upheaval seems to me to be missing a serious point. Gordon Pask's description in the catalogue of his awareness of the necessity of artistic genres.
The catalogue is loosely structured but stands up Colloquy of mobiles is more satisfactory than its Jonathan Benthall
quite well as a 100-page book in its own right. The actual incarnation in the exhibition. where its tune-

are sonorous tribal names of peoples whose fish and rituals and their specific relations to art objects is thus
The other Americans forest culture, fantastic mythologies, family pride, a unique contribution to studies in primitive art. And
potlach and dancing rituals provided art works both she presents over 500 reproductions of works of art.
functional and meaningful in their total metaphysics. many in colour.
The Kwakiutl were often the most dramatic. both in Purists may sneer: many of the objects are obviously
Art of the Kwakiutl Indians and other Northwest their rituals and in their artistic abstractions of human so recent, so conscious of a European or white-man's
Coast Tribes by Audrey Hawthorn. The University of and animal forms. And Kwakiutl art dominates the culture. that they are mere shells of the subtle artistic
British Columbia, University of Washington Press. huge collection formed by the University of British forms which resulted from more deeply-felt traditions
$25.00 Columbia. in the past; the quality of reproduction is not high.
Audrey Hawthorne's Art of the Kwakiutl Indians is and some of the colour plates are downright ugly.
Max Ernst and Adolf Gottlieb collected it; Barnett based on this collection. which was formed with the But as a record of the recently remembered mythic
Newman and Kurt Seligmann wrote about it; New help of the Kwakiutl themselves. With this help, she meaning of images in Kwakiutl ceremonial costumes.
York's Museum of Modern Art exhibited it; North­ has been able to identify the mythic meaning and masks. bowls. and textiles. this book is unsurpassed
west Coast Indian art has fascinated the art world in ritualistic usage of each object discussed and re­ in its thoroughness and clear precision.
America. Bella Ceola, Salish, Nootka. and Kwakiutl produced. and her clear and intelligent account of the Barbara M. Reise

above. The book reproduces pages from the original which cover the whole range of type or letter design
True to type books. reproductions of blown-up photographs of and do none of it properly. The text of this book is
crucial letters. together with alphabets. roman and very short, hardly more than captions to the plates,
italic, and at the end settings of text sizes, of the but it is apposite and factual. The main point for
most important modern versions. For Caslon for criticism is in the reproduction of the enlarged
An Atlas of Typeforms by James Sutton and Alan instance we are given enlargements of letters from photographs from early type-faces. These are blown
Bartram. 116 pp illustrated. Lund Humphries. 70s. his specimen of 1734, and a page from a book of up so large that in some cases the outline is gro­
1728 reproduced beside a page printed in Fell tesquely blurred and broken by what are presumably
'Caslon, William Caslon. 1924, Monotype': so runs roman. and eight modern faces; the reader can inequalities of ink and paper surface. though this is
the description in one of the big books recently work out for himself the differences, both in details not immediately apparent as the letters 'are printed
published on letter forms. In the type specimen books of design and in use. between the eighteenth black on white. It might have been preferable to
it is probably just 'Caslon'. In what way is William century and three modern designs of the same name; have given us smaller letters and more of them­
Caslon the Elder. 1692-1766, connected with the and also see it in its tradition, back through the A Q E N baegn are the letters chosen throughout.
accompanying type design? One can look up in Dutch designs to Garamond and Griffo. Again for More space for expanding valuable comparisons
the invaluable Encyclopedia of Type Faces or in sanserif the authors have presented the difference might also have been made by omitting the illustra­
R. S. Hutchings' The Western Heritage of Type between the classical and geometric designs of the tions of medieval book hands at the beginning. The
Design where one will find information about both thirties and the nineteenth century tradition which standard practise of starting books on letter forms
the original version and about the modern redesigned has become the orthodoxy of today. And they have with a few examples (usually the same) purporting
versions of varying faithfulness-alterations may be gone some way in trying to sort out the latter. The to cover the whole history of the complex and
required by changed techniques, and modern ver­ coverage in this section however demonstrates that a controversial subject of script and lettering before
sions are in many cases designed by distinguished good deal of work needs to be done on the develop­ 1400 is both futile and misleading. The relation
typographers. This Atlas of Typeforms is however ment of lower case sans designs in the later nine­ between Roman inscriptions and Carolingian and
the first book in which old and new are shown teenth century, mainly no doubt in Germany and the humanist calligraphy and the evolution of the first
together and may be compared. In so doing it United States, if we are to get the picture clear. types is on the contrary highly relevant and might
provides very useful data for the history of type The range of the Atlas is limited, there are only two have been examined more carefully.
design in a clear and succint form. and should spreads of decorated faces; no script: virtually no The design of the book is both pleasing and con­
dispel the misapprehensions created in the mind black letter. This decision on the part of the editors venient (it has a delightful title page) and it is
of the art student by the type of description quoted is to be applauded. There are far too many books excellent value. Nicolete Gray
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